Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-11-25

lald down painting with physical exhaus.
ton before mole hill. They who might
have thrilled senates and marshnle5
armies and startled the world with The
shock OF their scientific batteries. have
passed their lives in picking up prescrin-
tons FOR indigestion. They owned iii
the thunderbots of Jupiter, but could not
get out OF their rocking chair to use them.
george Washington in early life was n
poor speller, and spelled hat b. a double.t.
ana ream OF paper he spelled arheam."
oue ne Knew enough to spell out the inde-
Pehoence OF this country from foreign on
important, but there are other thing on;te
as important. a1''0
Just as great is the wrong done when the
mind is cultivated and the heart naolecto e
The youth of this day are seldom denied
any scholarly attainments. Our schools
ana seminaries are ever growing in
elnciency, and the students are conducted
through oil the realms of philosophy, and
ART, ana language, and mathematics The
most hereditary obtuseness gives way be-
lore the onslaught of adroit instructors.
But there is development of infinite i'm.
portance which mathematics and the deod
languages cannot affect. The more mental
power the more capacity for evil unless
coupled with religious restraint. You dis.
cover what terrible power for evil I'M
sanctlhed genius possesses when YOU see
ocallger with his scathing denunciations
aosssaulting the best men of his time, and
blonnt and Spinoza and Bolingbroke
leading their hosts of followers into the
all consuming fires of skepticism and in
fidelity. Whether knowledge is a MIGHTY
good or on unmitigated evil depends en-.
tirely upon which course it takes. The
river rolling on between round banks
makes all the valley laugh with golden
wheat and rank grass, and catching hold
OF the wheel of mill and factory, whirls it
with great industries. But, breaking
away from restraints and dashing over
banks in red wrath, it washes away
harvests from their mornings and makes
the valleys shrink with the catastrophe.
Fire in the furnace heats the house or
drives the steamer; but, uncontrolled,
warehouses go down in awful crash before
1t, ana III few hours half city will lie in
black ruin, walls and towers and churches
the education of the intellect with tho
education of the heart, or you are rousiny
up within your child an energy which viii
be blasting and terrific. Better q wicked
Ounce than q wicked philosopher.
The fourth error often committed in the
training of children is the suppression of
childish sportfulness. The most triumph
ant death of any child that I ever knew
was that of Scoville Haynes McCollum. A
few days before that, he was at my house
in Syracuse, and he ran like deer and his
halloo made the woods echo. You could
hear him coming block off, so full was
he of romp and laughter and whistle. Don't
put leligion on your child as straight
jacket. Parents, after having for q good
many years been jostled about in the
rough world often lose their viyacity, and
are astonished to see how their children
can act SO thoughtlessly of the earnest
world all about them. That is cruel
parent who quenches any of the light in a
childs soul. Instead of arresting its sport
fulness, go forth and help him trundle the
hoop, and fly the kite and build the snow
castle. Those shoulders are too little to
carry burden, that brow is too young to
be wrinkled, those feet are too sprightly
to go along ut funeral pace. God bless
their young hearts! Now is the time for
them to be sportful. Let them romp and
sing and laugh, and go with rush and
hurrah. In this way they gather up sur
plus of energy for future life. For the
child that walks around with scowl. drag
ging his feet as though they were weights
and sitting down by the hour in moping
and grubling, prophesy life of utter in
robins in the air till they are silent as a
bat, and lecture the frisking lambs on the
hillside until they walk like old sheep,
than put exhilarant childhood in the
stocks.
The fifth error in the training of child
hood is the postponement Of it's moral cul-
ture until too late. Multitudes of children
because of their preoocity have been urged
into depths of study where they ought not
to go, and their intellccts have been over-
burdened and overstrained and battered to
pieces against Latin grammars and alge-
bras, and coming forth into practical life
they will hardly rise to mediocrity, and
there is now stuffing and examining sys-
tenn of education in the schools of our
country that is beautiful to the teachers
who have to enforce it, and destructive to
the children who must submit to the pro-
cess. You find children at and 10 years
of age with school lessons only appropri-
ate for children of Is. If children are kept
in school and studying from to o'clock,
no home study except music ought to be
of them. Six hours of study is
enough for any child. The rest of the day
ought to be devoted to recreation and pure
fun. But you cannot begin too early the
moral culture of child, or on too COM
plete scale. You can look back upon
your own life and remember what mighty
impressions were made upon you at 5 or 6
years of age. Oh, that child does not sit
SO silent during your conversation to be
uninhuenced by it. You say he does not
understand. Although much of your
phraseology is beyond his grasp, he is
gathering up from your talk influences
which will affect his immortal destiny.
From the question he asks you long after
ward you find he understood all about
what you were saying. You think the child
does not appreciate that beautiful cloud,
but its most delicate lines are reflected
into the very depths of the youthful ma
ture, and score of years from now you
will see the shadow of that cloud in the
tastes and refnements developed. The
song with which you sang that child 10
sleep will echo through all its life. and
ring back from the very arches of Heaven:
I think that often the first seven years of
o child's life decides whether it shall be
irascible, waspish, rude false, hypocritical,
or gentle, truthful, frank, obedient, hon.
est, and Christian. Thepresent generations
of men will pass off very much as they are
now. Although the gospel is offered them,
the general rule is that drunkards die
drunkards, thieves die thieves, libertines
die libertines. Therefore to the youth we
turn. Before they SOW wild oats get them
to SOW wheat and barley. You fill the
measure with good corn and there will be